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ANNUAL REPORT
TO
The Board of Works for the Lewisham District
FOH THE YEAR 1871,
BY
F. EACIIUS WILKINSON, M.D., &c.
Medical Oficer of Health for the District.
Gentlemen,
Tho enumerated population of the whole of the Lewisham
District, at the census taken in April, 1871, amounted
to 19,663.
The estimated population at the middle of the year 1870
amounted to 47,422; and the estimated population in July,
1871, would have been 50,022 persons.
A correct estimate of the population from year to year
is an essential foundation for the calculation of sanitary
statistics; it is, therefore, satisfactory to know that the
calculations, adopted in my Annual Reports, based upon the
number of persons per house, and the number of inhabited
houses in the district, have been so nearly correct.
The comparative details as regards "the Lewisham
District" derived from the censuses of the last three decenniads
are very interesting.
The population of Blackheath has been advancing in
number principally by the excess of births over deaths; but
in the three other divisions of the district, (viz.Registrar's
districts, or portions of Registrar's districts,) the population
has not only increased by the excess of births over deaths but
by an unceasing immigration, so that, by reference to Table I.,
it will be seen that Lewisham Village, in which there were
6097 residents in 1851, and 7372 in 1861, has now a population
of 11,508. Sydenham, which in 1851 had a population
of 4,501, and had increased in 1861 to 10,595, has now a
population of 19,016; whilst Penge, which in 18-31 had a
population of 1,169, and in 1861 numbered 5,015, at the last
census had multiplied to 13,201.